Posts Tagged ‘omega’

This is neither a post on spiritual musings nor on linguistic principles. This is about hierarchy in the male population. As in the case of a wild pack of wolves, armed with just a binocular and shit-loads of free time, one can successfully determine the ‘alpha’ male of the group. The alpha male gets the best portion of food and the right to impregnate all the females in the pack.

Is this guy alpha or beta or omega?

Identifying the alpha among a ‘human pack’ is slightly tricky, though some guidelines have been put forth.

• Alpha male is considered as someone who is with leadership traits. Physically they are portrayed to have straight backs, head held up high, chest thrust outward and shoulder squared up.

• Those who are considered to be Beta males are famously described to have slumped shoulders, with bent spines and heads down. They are described as people with low self-esteem and lacking confidence.

The analysis gets more complicated as with any scientific principle with the advent of a third, comparatively recent addition, known as the Omega males. The omega males are characterized as – the true nice guys, whom you won’t remember from a party since they’re also frequently labelled as losers.

It is interesting to note that this study of male anthropology conforms to the Heisenberg’s Uncertainity Principle, which states that the very act of observing the system contributes to changes in the system. Such as a previously beta male could decide to latch onto the prerequisites of alphaism and attempt conversion. This is possible since flexibility of the hierarchy is very common among humans where it varies according to the environment, although the static nature is somewhat pronounced in the political landscape of backward economies.

The world(or female population) apparently has an affinity towards strong-willed alphas who lead with their vision, rather than the rest of males who end their sentences with ‘right?’. It appears that the world(and female population) isn’t clear on what kind of ideas they’re willing to admit their subjugation. For e.g Hitler was an alpha male and many did follow him albeit his idea involved genocide as a crucial component. Maybe this has something to do with the gullibility inherent in humans.

Throughout history all kinds of classifications, anthropology and otherwise, have appeared biased towards male exclusivity. Feminism has given birth to the alpha-female. The dominant female prefers the beta male because the ego takes a back-seat in that relationship. Otherwise, it would be a constant struggle between the alphas, male & female.

70% of the male population fall under the beta category. Being beta is not essentially demeaning considering the results of recent studies showing that the alphas deal with insurmountable amounts of stress. This study was done on baboons by analysing the hormone levels in their droppings. Two baboon populations led by aggressive alpha males fought over garbage left at a lodge. It led to a point where the contaminated meat killed off all the alpha males. The gentler betas gained control and the group got mellower. Even more fantastic was that each male in the group got two females to call his own. Maybe, beta is the new alpha.